SOME ONE RIDES AWAY
Pearse came on Sunday. That was great luck. Great luck, too, that
Uncle Hank should have happened to be at the house when the sheriff
rode in with his posse. He might just as likely have been out
somewhere on the range; for though he tried to keep Sunday on the
Three Sorrows, where the business of life deals with living
creatures—cattle—there will be acts of necessity and mercy—the ox to
be gotten out of the ditch, and that sort of thing. But he’d been
there, and he’d saved the day, for her and for Pearse—though he
didn’t know it himself. Then, as soon as he’d done so, Hilda did
wish he’d go off to the Spring Creek pasture and leave her the place
clear. Yes, she’d heartily wished that—and never noticed that it was
the first time in all her life that Uncle Hank’s presence had, for
any reason, been unwelcome. She had finally to take her chance,
while he was in the house, to steal down to Pearse to tell him all
about the sheriff and set his mind at rest.
“Well,” he said quietly, “if they’re thrown off the track for a
little while, that ought to be enough. I didn’t do what they think I
did. They’ll find the right man. It was this way, Hilda: I camped
Friday night out toward Wild Horse canyon, with three men. I didn’t
very much like their looks and they weren’t giving any names.”
“How did they look, Pearse? Describe them,” Hilda interrupted; and
when he’d done so, they were identified in her mind as Fayte
Marchbanks’s three Romero cousins. Some time during the night
Pearse’s horse got away. He felt sure now that one of those three
men must have taken off the hobbles and turned it loose, or more
probably led it to some near-by place of hiding and picketed it on a
short rope, for in the morning they all got out and helped him hunt
for it, and that hadn’t been the way they acted the night before, by
any means. Also they talked a great deal about feeling to blame for
the loss of his mount and wanting to help him out. So they gave him
a led pony that they had with them, explaining that it had a broken
shoe and he’d better ride easy, turn in at the first ranch he came
to which had a blacksmith’s outfit and get the pony re-shod. He did
this, but fortunately before he’d told that ranchman his errand, the
man offered him the information that a sheriff’s posse was out after
cattle thieves and that, in lifting the cattle, these thieves had
killed a man and stolen a pony with a broken shoe.
He saw the plot then, but it was too late to turn back. He rode all
day Saturday, trying to push on to the Three Sorrows. Finally,
Saturday night, he abandoned the pony whose broken shoe left a trail
that the officers would follow, and in the morning had drifted in,
across pastures, to the bank by the spring at the _asequia_, when he
looked up and saw two black eyes staring at him right out of the
side of a hill.
Hilda had brought down needles and thread and was doing her best to
make a neat job of mending his coat while they talked.
“Where’s Burch?” Pearse asked suddenly, as they heard the thin,
penetrating echo of Sam Kee’s gong from upstairs and Hilda got
unwillingly to her feet. “He must be a good-sized boy by now. Think
maybe you’d better tell him about me? He could help you, couldn’t
he?”
“Burch is in Fort Worth with Aunt Val,” said Hilda, and was
thrillingly glad it was so—that she, Hilda, alone, could do anything
for the blessed Boy-On-The-Train. “Aunt Val’s the aunt I told you
about, that came out after you people had left Denver. Papa sent for
her to come to Texas with us. She doesn’t like it on the ranch. I
must run now. Are you all right? I’ll bring you down some supper.
Sam Kee will give it to me. Sam was splendid with the sheriff.”
As Hilda had expected, the Chinaman was willing enough to give her a
good meal for her fugitive, but before she got it smuggled down to
him she almost hated Uncle Hank for being so much in the way. There
was the later adventure of stealing down with some bedding, and
assuring Pearse that he’d be free of the house as soon as Uncle Hank
left. He seemed deathly tired and almost careless of what might come
if he could only rest.
That was Sunday night. And after Sunday—Monday comes. You can’t help
it. It’s just that way. They string the days of the week together
without any regard for people’s feelings—or even the necessities of
the case. How could she go to school on Monday and leave Pearse
there hidden in the cyclone cellar? Of course, Sam Kee would never
tell; also, the Chinaman had furnished food enough to last through
the day: But it was like parting soul from body to ride away from
the Three Sorrows that morning, to turn her back on what might
chance, to give up hours with her fugitive that might have been
hers.
At school, Miss Belle found she had a strange Hilda in her classes.
The banner pupil was inattentive; no statement seemed to get through
to that mind, which her teacher knew to be usually so quick. A book
before her, motionless, apparently scarcely breathing, Hilda sat at
her desk, the image of a very studious little girl. But she did not
use the slate and pencil that lay under her hand; she did not see
the printed lines before her. What if the ranch house at the Three
Sorrows should burn down while she was away? It was a stone
house—but couldn’t stone houses burn? The things in them could,
anyhow. What if Sam Kee fell suddenly ill and, in his extremity,
“confessed all” to Uncle Hank? What if she, Hilda, were thrown from
her pony on the way home and broke a leg—no, turned an ankle—that
was more like the girls in stories—well, what if she turned an ankle
and lay helpless and couldn’t get down to see after Pearse? What
would become of him?
Her mind flew wildly to her aunt. If Miss Val had been at home would
she have dared to trust her with Pearse’s secret? Aunt Val hadn’t
met Mr. and Mrs. Masters, but they were her sort of people; she
would think that a boy brought up as Pearse had been couldn’t be a
cattle thief. Well—Uncle Hank would think so too if he knew Pearse.
But there was that way Pearse had looked when he heard Uncle Hank’s
name. She tried to forget it. It was too bad when people you were so
fond of wouldn’t like each other.
And of course it had to be that afternoon that visitors came to the
school. It was only Mrs. Capadine and the new Capadine foreman’s
wife; but Miss Belle wanted to show off the school, so she called on
Hilda Van Brunt, as she always did at such times. And Hilda
disgraced herself. Worse—she disgraced Miss Belle and the school.
Three times she said “I don’t know,” and one of those times the
question was such that any baby would have known the answer. Miss
Belle was asking it that way to make it easy.
As a last resort Hilda’s teacher called on her to recite—“speak a
piece” they called it when they mentioned it on the playground.
You’d think that was the thing she could do in her sleep. She loved
Friday afternoons because of the speaking. She now, standing in
front of them all, dashed nervously into:
“The stag at eve had drunk his fill—”
Then, suddenly, her mind jumped three miles and a half. What was
Pearse doing? Had they found him? She came back, with a jerk, to the
schoolroom, looked down at the faces of her schoolmates as they sat
at their desks, arms folded, listening; at the plump, expectant
ladies in the chairs. Then she repeated her statement about the
stag. Three times she said it; that stag, if he was full the first
time, must have been quite dangerously filled when she got to the
next line—
“As danced the Moon on Monan’s rill.”
Well, even then it would have been all right; she might have gone on
from there. But there was a snicker all over the room, and she
realized that she had said “Ronan’s mill.” Even the visiting ladies
were laughing at her. She burst into tears and sat down, hiding her
face in her arms on the desk top. She heard Miss Belle—Miss Belle,
angry and mortified—telling her that she would have to stay after
school!
Nothing to do about that. She just sat with her head on her desk and
cried and cried. The company left. The other scholars all filed
out—Miss Belle was letting them go a little early—Hilda heard them
getting on their ponies, riding away. Then Miss Belle came and sat
down in the seat beside her and put her arm around her, saying, more
kindly:
“What’s the matter, Hilda? You’re not a bit like yourself to-day.”
“Oh, Miss Belle,” Hilda’s face, all swollen with tears, came up; she
laid hold of the ruffle on Miss Belle’s shoulder with shaking
fingers; “oh, Miss Belle—let me go home. I—I’ll do anything for
you—if you’ll only let me go home—now.”
“Why, Hilda,” the teacher was only a big girl herself, “I believe
you’re sick. Do you feel bad? Is that it?”
“I feel awful,” choked Hilda, and didn’t mean to be untruthful; but
she knew afterwards how Miss Belle understood that. “If you’ll just
let me go home, Miss Belle—it’ll be all right. Let me go, please.”
“In a minute.” Miss Belle got up and hurried to her desk and began
writing something. She came back, folding it, asking anxiously, “Do
you think you can stand the ride home, Hilda? I hate to send you
alone. Want me to go with you? I will, if you need me. It’s out of
my way, and I’ve written to Mr. Pearsall—but if you think you need
me—”
“Oh, no, Miss Belle. I’m all right.” Hilda was on her feet, reaching
for the note for Uncle Hank. “Yes’m, I can ride home all right.
Oh—thank you, Miss Belle!”
“Well,” the teacher stood in the door watching the streaking figure
of a little girl on a pony vanishing down the trail toward the Three
Sorrows, “well—if that was any one else but Hilda Van Brunt I’d say
she was putting it all on to get sent home. Maybe I needn’t have
said three days—but Mr. Pearsall will know when he sees her.”
Oh, the confidence of the grown-up world that the youngsters they
care for and look after are so easily understood! Hank, peering over
his spectacles from Miss Belle’s little note, in which she said she
found Hilda nervous and overexcitable, was afraid she wasn’t well,
and thought maybe she’d better be kept home from school for two or
three days’ rest, saw before him a Hilda whose eyes were big and
almost wildly bright, whose cheeks flamed with unusual color. He
laid two fingers against the hot curve of one.
“Feverish, Pettie?” he suggested.
“Aunt Val would say I had a temperature.” Hilda laughed a little
excitedly. She hadn’t had to tell any story. All she needed to do
was to keep still and let them fool themselves. She wouldn’t have
done it for her own sake—but for her fugitive down there in the
cyclone cellar anything was fair.
For five days Hilda stayed at home from school; and the boy, Pearse
Masters, lay hid in the cyclone cellar. Hilda heard through the boys
that Sheriff Daniels was still searching for him. It seemed the trap
the Romero boys—if it was they—had laid with that broken-shoed pony
still deceived the officers of the law. And Hilda’s behavior these
days was queer enough to make Uncle Hank feel that she needed to be
at home rather than in school. Most of the time when she was
upstairs her heart was in her mouth, as the saying is, or anyhow so
close to her mouth that it jumped right into it if some one spoke
suddenly to her. The feeding of her captive, planning for his
comfort, scouting for his safety, kept her at a nervous tension.
Pearse wasn’t nervous; he stood being cooped up in that little dark
hole all day wonderfully. Whenever the coast was clear, and all the
men off the place, she hurried down to him. She had scoured the
office for checker and chess board, packs of Authors, a puzzle
game or two that ought to be lying about somewhere. But mostly
she and Pearse would just talk. To the girl of thirteen, this
Boy-On-The-Train was, of course, different from the one she
remembered as so wonderful, from the figure that had lived in her
recollection all those years, having added to him a great many
things that hardly belonged to a real, flesh-and-blood boy. He was a
more experienced person than Hilda might have expected; he was as
tall as a man, and better-looking, Hilda decided, than any one she
had ever seen. He had an awfully interesting disposition; he could
be merry and full of fun—but as hard as flint, too. He got that hard
look in his eyes whenever she mentioned Uncle Hank. Well, then, the
best way was not to talk about Uncle Hank to him at all. So they
played checkers and told stories, and Pearse sent her upstairs for
books she’d told him were on the shelves up there, but she hadn’t
thought she’d like. And he read aloud to her from some of them—and,
oh, she did love them!
But the one thing that was always right between Hilda and Pearse was
their feeling for this beautiful plains country of the West. They
both loved it! Like her, Pearse would rather ride than anything in
the world. She was crazy to have him see the Three Sorrows in
daylight; for you couldn’t get any idea of things at night, which
was the only time he had to get out and move about; and, of course,
he couldn’t have got any real view of the place that day he came in
over it, afoot, half starved, parched with thirst, thinking only of
some place to hide.
Finally, she did get Sam Kee to keep watch, when everybody else was
out of the way, and she took Pearse out through the front door, all
the way down the box-elder avenue to the trail, back again, around
by way of the _asequia_, past the spring and the kitchen garden, to
the corrals and stables, and out into the home pasture, where some
of the best horses were.
He praised it all, as she had been so eager to hear him do. And
Hilda had been anxious, without saying a word of the sort, to show
him how well Uncle Hank managed and took care of them all. She was
the more urgent about this, since she felt, down deep in her heart,
that she didn’t actually want Pearse to meet Uncle Hank—this time.
He’d come back some day, when all the tangles had been straightened
out, and then—it was breathless, exciting to have him all her own
guest, her responsibility—but, oh, she loved it!
And the long talks in the cyclone cellar, when he told her how he
came to be adrift here in the western cattle country, heading for a
job over on a New Mexico ranch—they were like chapters out of a
story—a much more fascinating story than any in the books.
When he and Hilda saw each other last, he’d been a rich man’s son,
just back from Europe, where he had been traveling with his parents.
Now both Mr. and Mrs. Masters were dead.
“They weren’t my real parents, you know, Hilda,” he explained. “I
was only an adopted son.”
Hilda’s heart gave a little bound; the wandering heir—the prince in
disguise—was an adopted son. Pearse was going on:
“They had other children—grown and married. We’d traveled around a
lot, in Italy and Switzerland. My tutor went with us. We lived in
England a while, and a while in Italy; and one whole summer in
Ireland; and in those places I went to school. Gee!” she heard a
little gulp, “I was happy then. But Father got called home on some
important business, and the next day after we landed in New York he
was killed—in a street-car accident.”
“Papa was killed in a roundup,” murmured Hilda.
“Taken suddenly that way,” Pearse went on, “his business was left
all at loose ends. Mother went to live with her married daughter. I
felt I couldn’t go there—except to see her. They didn’t like me.
Well—I guess they hated me.”
“Why would they?” Hilda bristled.
“Natural enough,” said Pearse easily. “I suppose they’d never wanted
Father and Mother to adopt me—a poor little rat running away from an
uncle that beat him.”
He laughed when he said that, but Hilda’s eyes were full of tears.
“Mother was sick when she went to Nelly’s house,” he went on. “She
died within the month. I felt then that there wasn’t anything in the
East for me. I belong to the West, Hilda—same as you do. Father had
owned a share in that cattle company in New Mexico. He always said
that he intended to leave it to me—or give it to me—but now I
couldn’t find out a thing about how it was left. Nelly’s husband and
George had everything in their hands. Anyhow, I felt sure that
Father’s name would get me a job on the J I C, if I could get to
them. I sold my watch and my books and some other things to get the
railroad fare, depending on my own work to make good with the
company, once I had the job. Had a fine opinion of myself, didn’t
I?—a fellow that would let himself be taken in by such a bunch as
the three I camped with that night, and get set afoot on the bald
plain, with the sheriff after him—have to sneak in to a little girl
like you for help! Hilda, you’re a lot better at cattle-country
business than I am.”
“I’m not, Pearse. I just know the ways out here a little better. And
I don’t know them so very well. Maybe, after all, you’ll let me go
to Uncle Hank and ask—”
She stopped there. The blue eyes that had been laughing were
suddenly full of anxiety; the voice, too, was anxious as Pearse
said:
“You’ve been awfully good to me, Hilda—a regular brick in every way.
Now you won’t go and spoil it all by—” He broke off, frowning. Hilda
stared at him apprehensively. Finally, he said:
“I’ll make a bargain with you; no use pretending that I like the man
you call Uncle Hank, or that I enjoy the idea of meeting him again.
But I will some time. I’ll come back some time when I can walk up
the front steps. I’d never have sneaked in here to hide if I’d known
he was manager of the ranch; but as I have done so, and found you
again, Hilda, and we’re such good friends—I’ll come back. Now let’s
forget it.”
Words wouldn’t come. Hilda felt sure that if she’d tried to make
them, tears would, instead. She just shook her head silently. That
might have meant anything. Pearse seemed to think that it meant she
agreed to what he said.
“All right;” the gruffness and rasp were out of his voice now.
“Let’s just talk about ourselves, then. When I get over to New
Mexico I’ll write back to you. You and I aren’t going to quarrel
because of any one else—are we? We’ll always be great friends.”
“Oh, always—always!” That was what Hilda said, with all her
heart—and wondered at herself a little for saying it. How could she
be friends with one that wasn’t friends with Uncle Hank? Yet she
must be—she must. And maybe, some day, when she and Pearse had been
good friends for a long while, she’d get him to think differently
about Hank—she’d be the peacemaker between them. Anyhow, there
wasn’t much time now—she couldn’t waste any of it arguing with
herself.
She got Shorty—Shorty was close-mouthed, and he seldom asked
questions—to shoe her pony Sunday on his front feet, and the night
upon which they had agreed that Pearse must get away she used the
utmost of her influence with Sam Kee to get the necessary provision
of food. She had a little money—her small hoard toward the joys of
Christmas. It was eleven o’clock when she was able at last to slip
down cellar and bring back her guest. They had a night of white
moonlight for the enterprise, such a night as only the high plains
country ever sees. It appeared that every object was as clearly
visible as by day, yet all was subtly changed, flooded with
mysterious beauty.
The low, spreading ranchhouse silently brooded its sleepers; but
cottonwood leaves whispered loud in a light night breeze above the
little stream that flashed its myriads of sparkles back to the moon.
The Willow Nixies over by the tank were dimly visible, bowing down
as at some magic affair of their own. Suddenly, upon the lonely
stillness, a mocking bird gave voice. Up from deep, deep, ancient
wells that song bubbled, liquid, divine. The boy stood a moment and
hearkened, Hilda watching, breathless, furtive. He made an impatient
gesture and moved on. Without a word, the Sunday horse was led out
from where Hilda had tied him. She went to a peg on which hung a
handsome saddle, bridle and saddlecloth.
“They were papa’s,” she said.
“All right,” Pearse spoke with some difficulty. In silence he
bridled the pony, saddled him and made the bundle of provisions fast
by means of the long tie-strings. “I’ll take them, Hilda. I’ve got
to. But I’ll send them back as soon as I can.”
“Oh, no—” Hilda was beginning, but he interrupted her:
“What’ll you say to Mr. ——. What’ll you say to your Uncle Hank?”
She trembled a little at that, but answered with reasonable
steadiness:
“I think I’ll ask him not to make me tell him anything about it. I
never have asked Uncle Hank that, but he’ll do it for me. Here—you
must have this.”
Her little brown hand was putting some coins into his, and he caught
the fingers and closed them, distress, reluctance, in look and
action.
“I hate to take your money,” he broke out.
Hilda’s face raised to his, white in the moonlight, seemed more than
ever all eyes, as they slowly filled with tears. The many-hued,
gleaming cloak of romance was slipping from her; she began to feel
the chill of naked realities. In vain she strove to have it that she
was arming her prince for the fray, defending her fugitive, making
good his escape; she could not think one thought or draw one breath
as Kate Barlass, as Flora MacDonald, or any of the rest of that
devoted throng. She was just herself—her own small, lonely self—out
behind the corral with Pearse, unknown to all the sleeping
household; and it was the last time she would be there with him. He
was going away from her. A little money—what did it matter, one way
or the other?
“Oh, you must take it—you must!” she protested, the choke of rising
emotion in her tone. “I wish it was more. There’s only two dollars
and thirty-five cents.”
His voice failed huskily. He stood looking at her a moment, as
though he would have said more; then, without a word, shook his
head, turned, and his foot was in the stirrup. The realization that
this was good-by reached its climax in Hilda’s heart. He was really
going away. Like a big, black, engulfing wave rolled over her the
thought of the time coming when there would be no Pearse to talk to
or read with, to feed or care for; no delicious hiding and
intriguing enterprises—nothing but the round of ranch and school
life. Blindly, she caught at his sleeve.
“Oh, don’t! Don’t go! Come back in the house.”
A whirlwind of sobs shook the slim figure, and Pearse hastily,
awkwardly, put his arm about her to steady her.
“Let’s tell Uncle Hank!” she gasped. “He’ll explain to the sheriff
and those men. He can. You’d better stay here, Pearse.”
She looked up into his face in the dimness, and knew, before he
spoke, that he was going to refuse.
“Hilda—I can’t. If I’d known he was manager here, I’d never have
come in the first place. I told you that. If ever I see you again—
Oh, say, Hilda! don’t cry so. I just can’t stand to see you feel so
badly.”
She dried her eyes with piteous eagerness and strangled the sobs
that still shook her.
“Goo-good-by, Pearse. Good-by—and good luck,” she achieved without a
break. “You’ve got it all clear in your mind about the trail?”
“All clear. Good-by,” answered the boy hoarsely. And, not venturing
another look at her, he rode away.